It wouldn’t be another start to the season if it wasn’t for Calgary stumbling out of the blocks. This time around, fans sound serious about worrying that the inevitable complete fall from grace is coming. Stars Jarome Iginla and Miikka Kiprusoff are 34 and 35 years-old respectively and Roman Horak and Mikael Backlund represent their only youthful players. With everyone else being in their late-20s or their 30s, the future is bleak in Calgary.

While Calgary has nearly been a playoff team the last two years, they’ve fallen short and with the team aging not-so gracefully (they’re the second-oldest team in the league behind Detroit) it might be time for GM Jay Feaster to find a way to blow things up and start anew.

Trades don’t come without risk, but with just Horak and Backlund to look at as definitive positive prospects, the Flames are in a bad way. With 11 unrestricted free agents after this season, trading away talented guys with extended deals like Alex Tanguay and Rene Bourque might not be the best thing to do in the short term, but to get what they want that might be the only option they have to clean house and start over.

Wait… ok, I’m not saying Turris is a bad player. But… he’s hardly the guy I’d look towards for rebuilding around. For one, he hasn’t really done much- certainly not nearly as much as he apparently thinks he has. Second, this holdout of his- is this the kind of guy an NHL GM looks at and says ‘yeah, I can see things going well if I bring this kid into my locker room.’? He’s going to want serious money, and all he’s shown is that he’s got some talent and a very poor ‘all me’ attitude.